Views and news about the brews. Unique and relevant information for coffee professionals and enthusiasts.

Let's Change the Customer Feedback Game

📊We suck at getting good feedback from customers. Customers also generally suck at giving it to us. And this is a big, big problem.

A while ago Amazon released a button that does things on the internet like order more washing powder. You probably thought it was boring. I did too.

This week they opened that button up, so it can do anything on the internet. All you need to do is link it with something. Much more interesting!

I want you to use it to get feedback from customers.

Perhaps you could put it next to the door with “Click once if your coffee was better than last time. Double click if it was worse”, “click the button if you had a great time here” or “click me if you waited too long for your coffee”. It could be anything!

For so long, hospitality has been in the dark about what their customers really think. Online review sites are disproportionately negative, and feedback in the cafe is either sycophantically positive or plain negative. An anonymous and nearly-zero-effort act on behalf of the customer could open the doors for some seriously next-level optimisation.

As a part owner of a few venues I would be over the moon to learn even something as simple as “my coffee was better/worse than previous visit”. We could map this to coffees and recipes, staff on bar, rostering and even playlists. It’s massive.

Imagine changing coffees and getting an email at the end of the day with results. You could even check for a change in sentiment after leaving the newbie on bar for the afternoon. Or change coffee midway through the morning and do an A/B test within a couple hours. Or even set KPI’s or rewards linked to positive sentiment above a certain % of patrons. This could completely change your venue’s game. Websites do it - why can’t cafes?

Normally I’d ask for help, but I want it to happen now; so I’m asking you for donations. Every cent will go towards hiring a freelancer to set up a super easy workflow for cafe owners and operators to improve their feedback loop and optimise the hell out of their business. It might be with the amazon aws button, or something else like flic or bt.tn. Rest assured it’ll be affordable and easy.

I’ve set up a page at paypal.me/baristahustle where I implore anyone with some spare change to throw me a couple bucks. You’ll be helping your fellow industry friends more than you may realise. Any leftovers will be donated to the International Women’s Coffee Association (no tax receipts etc. this is just a small time project to help friends).

It is indeed long, but I strongly encourage anyone who has enjoyed my more technical pieces to save it to your reading list and dig in when appropriate. Michael details proper scientific method applied to real world environments in an easy-to-understand narrative style. Remember: anyone can do real science.

Sadly, there has been some pushback to this post, most of which has fallen short as childish ad hominem (attacking the person, not the argument), straw manning (arguing against something that’s not relevant) and plain old resistance to change. I’m eagerly waiting for someone to provide a sensible counter-argument that extends beyond “I disagree about too much to write”.

Watch Christopher Hendon Titrate Water Like a Boss

💉There may not be another human on earth who knows as much about coffee and water as The Hendon. In this rather dry video, he demonstrates how to use a Red Sea Reef Kit to measure the Alkalinity, Magnesium and Calcium content of your brewing water. If you’re struggling with the chemistry of water, this video could help as it’s mostly in human-speak.

Sign Language Coffee Drive-Through

✌This is a video of a woman ordering a coffee at a Starbucks drive-through entirely in sign language. It’s incredible. Super epic points to Starbucks for making this a thing.

🌐 Boy oh boy. This thing is growing like crazy and just keeps getting better. There’s hundreds of commenting users and now over 6,000 members. Thanks to everyone that’s been active in there; you’re awesome!

This week’s highlights:

I suggested a coffee mail-out where I source ridiculously excellent exotic coffees and airmail them to people in 80g envelopes. Response was absolutely jaw dropping (1000 EOI’s and hundreds of comments). I’ve been busy sorting out the logistics all week to make it a real thing. I hope to formally announce it and open sales in the next email. Keep your eyes peeled!

I also asked people about the first cup of coffee that changed their life. This post has 93 visceral, detailed short-stories about how people came into coffee and I think it’s just magical. Read if you want to feel some good vibes.

Good discussion on how to vet donations to charities. I know a lot of cafes get canvassed for this, so I’d highly recommend checking this out and strengthening your policies.